


the starboy apocrypha

by Adversarial



Category: Dear Starboy, Eddsworld - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Basically a reimagining of the Dear Starboy fic written by Saltiestblueberry on Wattpad, Dear Starboy AU, Depression, Emotional Manipulation, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Mental Breakdown, Metafictional Themes, Self-Harm, pastel!tord
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-23
Updated: 2018-03-03
Packaged: 2019-03-08 09:47:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 10,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13455681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adversarial/pseuds/Adversarial
Summary: "Concerning these scriptures, which are called apocryphal, for the reason that many things are found in them corrupt and against the true faith handed down by the elders, it has pleased them that they not be given a place nor be admitted to authority.”— Origen, on Song of Songs---Tom is a lonely, disillusioned high school student.Tord is an eclectic new neighbor with a grin that is hiding something."It's funny," Tord says, "how Sirius looks like it's a single star. Deceptive. There's about 10 AU separating the pair of them, you know. Culturally, everyone just assumed they were the same."Tom nodded, unsure of where he was going with this. Tord smiled a little too widely."Do you get it yet, Tom?"





	1. the norwegian cat

**Author's Note:**

  * For [distorted-tord](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=distorted-tord).
  * Inspired by [dear starboy](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/353064) by saltiestblueberry. 



> This is a reinterpretation of an existing fic. Chapter titles from the original Wattpad posting have been retained.

“Tom! The neighbors move in today!” 

Tom groaned, burying his face in his pillow. There were many things that he did not want to be woken for on a Sunday morning: church, for one. Homework was a close second. Doing chores or laundry. Finding out that there were new neighbors next door. 

Whatever. He sighed, groped around on his bedside table until he found a mostly-empty bottle of ibuprofen, swallowed two pills dry. Hello, hangover. 

“Tom!” His father’s shout sent a bolt of pain through his skull, making him wince. 

“Yessir,” Tom shouted back, dragging himself into a sitting position and running a hand through his hair. He could feel the angle it was sticking up at and it made him grimace. He could really use a shower. 

“Lunch in ten! I’d better see you at that table, boy!” His father’s tone left no room for argument. Looked like Tom wasn’t going back to bed anytime soon.

“Yessir,” Tom repeated blearily, blinking until his vision cleared and he could take in the stack of unfinished homework on his desk. He’d meant to do that last night. He really had. But Matt and Edd had been online, and Edd had insisted that they get drunk and watch Rocky Horror together, and Tom had _maybe_ overdone it with the Smirnoff just a little, and wow none of that changed the fact that Tom was still failing precalculus. He felt a brief twinge of fear when he remembered that report cards were coming out soon before burying it deep and resolving to care about it when natural light didn’t feel like a nail being hammered right into the middle of his brain.

Yawning and scratching his side, Tom climbed out of bed. Tripped on an empty fifth. Stumbled. Banged his elbow on the windowsill. Went down with some choice profanity. 

He heard muffled laughter from outside his window. 

_What the fuck._

When he yanked the glass pane open, still squinting against the noon sunlight, Tom was greeted with the sight of a small grey kitten, daintily licking its paw. 

He paused. Something about it was—

“You, my friend, need to sober up.” Tom’s head snapped up.

Sitting in the windowsill of the house next door was a leering, skinny young man that Tom didn’t immediately recognize. 

“You should mind your own goddamn business,” he retorted, and the stranger snickered at him. When Tom finally got his eyes to focus, he gawked. 

The boy looked like something out of one of Edd’s comics, with chaotic brown hair, a Cheshire grin, and a sweater garish enough to put Matt's entire summer wardrobe to shame. He was wearing an honest-to-god flower crown, for chrissakes, and that was enough to momentarily distract Tom from—

“— What the everloving hell is wrong with your eyes?” Tom demanded.

“I could ask the same of you,” the stranger replied, “but you’ll notice that I have this thing called ‘basic courtesy’. I’d advise that you acquire it.” 

Tom bristled. “I have a medical condition.” 

“As do I. It’s called heterochromia.” The boy moved to brush his bangs out of his face, bracelets sliding down his wrist with the gesture. He leveled the full force of his stare on Tom.

His silver-and-crimson stare. 

The eye contact lasted for a long, tense moment before Tom broke it, opting to look back down at the kitten instead. “How did you get up here,” Tom mumbled, pointedly ignoring his new neighbor to rub behind its ears. The cat purred. 

“Climbed the chestnut tree, probably.” Tom pursed his lips, looking up once again at the asshole in the purple sweater. 

“Who the fuck are you, again?” 

“I’m Tord, obviously. Your new neighbor, friend…” Tord trailed off for a second before giving Tom a conspirational look, “potential love interest.” 

He waited for Tom to freeze, process that, and prepare a retort before cutting him off. “Pal, comrade.” He smirked at that last one, as though sharing a private joke with someone. “You’ll be seeing a lot of me, Kitty Boy.”

“If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not,” Tom said, tone cutting. Tord’s smirk only grew wider. 

“Feisty. I like it.” 

Tom couldn’t shake the feeling that he was missing something vitally important in this exchange. Looking at Tord’s smiling face was making him uneasy.

“I’ve got to go,” he mumbled suddenly, “Dad wants me downstairs for lunch.”

“Until next time, Kitty Boy,” Tord said in a singsong voice, dismissing Tom with a wave of his hand. Tom slammed the window shut, startling the cat on the sill as he immediately turned his back on Tord and hurried out of his room. 

What a creep.

—

Tord stared into Tom’s empty room for a long moment.

“Aren’t you a tricky one?” he murmured, sparing a glance at the grey kitten Tom had left outside. It was low on the window sill, tail raised and ears flat against its head, hissing at him. “I wonder how you got here.”

Ringo glared at Tord for another second before slinking off, hopping into the branches of the chestnut tree and disappearing into the foliage. 

Tord's gaze flickered in the direction of Tom’s window before looking back to see that the cat had vanished into thin air. His smile faltered, dropped.

He could feel the timer counting down.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in this for the long haul, folks.


	2. sky full of stars

Tom slammed his face into his notebook, jarring his desk and nearly spilling his coffee— three teaspoons of sugar, no milk, thank you kindly— all over his laptop. 

The unit circle sucks. Precalc sucks. Everything, Tom decides with perfect finality, sucks major horse cock. 

His report card sits unopened in his backpack in a neat manilla envelope. He has maybe three days before his father will notice that it is missing and demand to see it. He’s already requested that Edd and Matt speak at his funeral, and they’d laughed, but. 

They didn’t know his father.

Tom sat back up, took a long sip of his coffee, and reached into his desk for his flask. Almost empty. Balls.

With a sigh, he emptied the remaining contents into his mug and resigned himself to dicking around on the Internet for the rest of the night. To be fair, this was how he spent most nights; having an irl social life was hard when your only two friends lived five hours away. Besides, flaming noobs on the ska discussion forums was hysterical. 

He was halfway finished with his bait thread (intentional conflation of trojan skinheads and white supremacist skinheads, classic) when he heard a gentle thud at his window. Followed by another. And another. 

“Y’know,” Tom drawled, opening his window with one hand while the other held his, ahem, _improved_ coffee, “most people would just come to the front door and knock. It’s just ‘basic courtesy’.” His sarcastic air quotes sloshed a few drops of coffee onto the sleeve of his sweatshirt and he swore.

Tord just laughed, popping a piece of candy into his mouth. His clothes today were marginally less ridiculous than they were when Tom had met him yesterday, and he seemed to have shed the jewelry. An improvement. 

When Tord didn’t immediately offer a retort, Tom leaned against the side of the windowsill, cradling his drink. “What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue?” 

Tord’s face suddenly went pale, but he regained his composure so quickly that Tom might have just imagined it. “This tongue is all yours if you want it, Kitty Boy,” Tord purred, and Tom immediately recoiled. “Oh? Is Kitty Boy scared of a little flirtation?”

“Kitty Boy is getting more than enough pussy, if you know what I mean,” Tom replied blandly, taking a sip of his drink. A blatant lie, but it had Tord cackling. Tom gave him a small smile. 

“I’ll admit, that was clever,” Tord said, relaxing into his seat. One long leg hung lazily over the two-stroy drop into the yard below, a bag of jellybeans sitting on the sill that Tord was straddling. “So what’s on your mind, Kitty Boy? You look tense.” 

Tom’s face crumpled into a scowl. “School shit. You know how it is.”

“Surprisingly, I do not,” Tord popped another jellybean into his mouth, and Tom found his eyes involuntarily tracking the muscles in his throat as he swallowed. “I’m homeschooled.”

“Lucky bastard,” Tom muttered, taking a long gulp of his coffee. Part of him was going through his father’s work schedule, debating whether it would make more sense to try and refill his flask now or in a few hours while his father was sleeping. He had the feeling he was going to need it soon.

“I know, right? No cafeteria food, no standardized curricula, no nationally-mandated testing. I can just spend all of my time studying my favorite subject,” Tord said, pulling a thermos from the inside of his room and gesturing to it. It was patterned with stars.

“Dissipation of heat energy?” Tom deadpanned. He’d had a surprisingly good physics teacher freshman year. 

“No, you ass. Space. The cosmos. Stars.” Tord opened up the thermos and took a long swig. “You’ll notice that it’s a recurring motif in my aesthetic.” 

“Pardon me for not paying attention to your goddamn aesthetic,” Tom groused, before looking dubious. “What exactly are you offering me here?”

Tord had extended the thermos to Tom, who was currently leaving him hanging in the gap between their houses. “Whiskey, obviously. Don’t think I didn’t see you emptying a flask into that coffee.” 

Tom quirked an eyebrow. “That is. Certainly considerate of you. Suspiciously considerate.” 

“Consider it a peace offering,” Tord volunteered. “I made a bit of an ass of myself the last time we spoke.” 

Tom shrugged at that and took the thermos, sniffing the contents before sticking his tongue in just far enough to test the liquid inside. “Consider yourself forgiven, then,” he said, before pouring half the thermos’ contents into his mostly-empty mug and passing it back to Tord. “Cheers.”

Tord clinked his thermos against Tom’s mug before drinking deeply, Tom’s eyes once again locking on his Adam’s apple before looking quickly away.

“So. Space and shit,” Tom started. Tord waited patiently for him to continue. “Why that, of all the things?”

Tord leaned back against the windowsill, apparently considering the question. “Have you ever sat down and thought about the night sky? I mean, really thought about it?’

“Nope,” Tom admitted, and Tord made a grandiose, sweeping gesture with his hand at the entire night sky.

“Consider this: each of those tiny pinpricks of light we see is an enormous flaming ball of gas and thermonuclear fusion. It’s plasma held together by its own gravity, forcibly warping the fabric of spacetime just by being huge and explosive and imposing. When they die, they can literally tear the fabric of reality as a final ‘fuck you’ to the universe. How are you not fascinated by that?”

Tom had to admit, that was cool. But Tord’s eyes were a little too wide, his tone a little too manic. “People still believe in predestination, you know. The idea that your fate is written in the stars.”

“Do they,” Tom responds, but something has clearly gotten into Tord. 

“They do. And why wouldn’t they? Our bodies, every cell of us, are made from materials that used to be in stars. They define our universe, when you think about it. I mean, where would we be without the sun?” Tord isn’t looking at Tom anymore, face instead turned straight heavenwards. “Gravity changes the nature of spacetime, warps reality around it. We assume that we exist in threespace, possibly fourspace depending on where you stand philosophically on the nature of time, but what’s beyond that? Could you change history? Find parallel universes? Who knows?” 

"Tord,” Tom interjects, tone laced with warning, and Tord pauses in his ramble to take a deep breath and smile at Tom.

“Sorry about that. I tend to get, ah… A bit carried, when I’m talking about the stars.” Tord has the grace to look momentarily self-conscious before taking a long sip from his thermos and forcing himself to relax slightly. 

“No worries. It was interesting, for the most part,” Tom offers, and Tord grins at him. “I do need to get to sleep, though.”

“Go get some rest. I’ll be here to harangue you in the morning.”

Tom yawns. “Thank you again for the whiskey, Star Boy.”

“No thanks necessary, Kitty Boy. Sweet dreams.”

And Tom left Tord alone, with only the night sky for company.

—

(see there?

the brightest star. the one i’m pointing at.

that’s sirius. the dog star. 

except here’s the thing about sirius. it’s actually two stars.

one of them is huge and bright and heavy— it’s comparable in size to the sun. when that one dies (and, yes, _stars do die_ ), it’ll go supernova. it’ll explode into everything and leave a pit of superdense nothingness behind. 

the other one is tiny in comparison. it’s called a white dwarf, right. and unlike the other star, the massive one, this one will just fizzle out someday. it’s an offshoot. an afterthought. it’ll die off much sooner than the big one.

the thing is, from earth? we can’t tell them apart. they’re both sirius. the smaller star always caught in the larger one’s orbit. 

so they dance around each other in perpetuity until eventually, inevitably, the smaller one dies and the larger one goes careening out of its orbit because the thing anchoring it in place is gone and the music stops and the dance ends and everything grinds to a halt. 

but from earth, all anyone will see is sirius.

tick tock, tord.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please don't quote me on the astrophysics.


	3. safe haven

The drop from the edge of the waterfall is steep. 

Tord peered over the edge with detached interest as the water rushes around his ankles, shimmering in the predawn dimness. His shoes, sparkly ankle boots entirely impractical for wandering through the woods, were ruined. He could feel the thin fabric of his socks soaking through, feel the edges of the rocks beneath the thin rubber soles. 

His depth perception is heinous— apparently, losing an eye in one reality will fuck you over in all of them— but he can tell at a glance that the drop is more than enough to kill him. 

If nothing else, it would be a quick death.

The thought jolts him out of his stupor, and as Tord refocused, his lips pressed together into a grim smirk. 

He’d had an inkling of where this was going from the moment he’d locked eyes with Tom. The setup was just too serendipitous; what were the odds that they would find each other again in this life? What were the odds that only Tord would remember? This new reality he’d found himself in was the kind of perfectly-crafted comedy that would make Shakespeare proud, and this.

This was the narrative’s way of reminding Tord of what happened in his tragedies. 

“The _Mad Scene,_ ” he quoted, under his breath. He nudged a stone at the edge of the drop with the glittery toe of his shoe and watched it tumble down into the pool below. His smile was a death rictus. 

“Enter Ophelia.” 

—

Tom was about ten seconds away from disintegrating. 

His face was pinched and flushed as he strode up the walkway to his house, a good four hours before he was supposed to be home from school. When he went to unlock the door, his hands were trembling so hard that it took three tries to get the key into the lock. He managed to hold it together up until the door closed behind him and then slumped to the floor, burying his face in his hands. His heart was thrashing in his chest like an epileptic bird, lungs expanding and contracting so quickly that his ribs ached. 

The worst part was that he _knew_ it was stupid. There was no reason to have a panic attack over something as dumb as a precalc test.

(But if he didn’t pass this class, his father would…)

(fuck fuck fuck _fuck_ —)

A knock at the door.

“Tom? Is that you?” Tord.

“Fuck off,” Tom ground out, pressing his back to the door. He dug his nails deep into his palms, focusing in on the pain.

“Not an option, sadly.” There was a dark humor in Tord’s tone that Tom couldn’t parse as he tried to control his breathing. “Are you alright?”

“Peachy,” Tom muttered, and he heard Tord sigh and drum his fingers on the door between them. 

“What will it take to get you to open the door?” 

“… You leaving.” Tom hated the petulance in his voice, hated how he sounded like a child in the middle of a tantrum. Which was what he was. That was exactly what was happening here. Fuck. 

Tord sighed again and seemed to consider this. Finally, he relented. “Alright. But meet me in your front yard at nine o’clock sharp.”

“What?”

“Trust me,” Tord said, voice getting faint. He must be walking away from the door. “Be there.” 

Tom was puzzled enough by this that it took him a second to realize that his breathing was calming down. Apparently, talking with Tord had been enough of a distraction for his nervous system to get its shit under control, and he welcomed the newfound calm with a long, shaky breath. 

Tom slowly rose to his feet and wondered what the hell his neighbor could be plotting. 

—

“I can’t,” Tom repeated. “My father will literally murder me if he figures out I’m gone.” 

Tord made an exasperated sound from where he stood underneath Tom’s window. “Just jump,” he called, holding out his arms beseechingly. “I’ll catch you, promise.”

“What the hell,” Tom hissed. “I can just climb down the tree!”

“Then do it,” Tord taunted, mismatched eyes crinkling at the corners as he laughed. “Don’t be a pussy, Tom.”

“Fuck you,” Tom swore, shooting a glance back to his bedroom door. No sign of his father. He turned back to the windowsill and gathered his courage. Edd and Matt had urged him to go when he’d told them about his mysterious, alcohol-providing, slightly insane… not quite friend. _It’s a real adventure, Tom!_ Edd insisted, while Matt sent a flurry of excited emotes. _Don’t you want to know what he’s hiding?_

“Come on,” Tord urged, and Tom inhaled quickly through his teeth before climbing onto his desk and stepping onto the window pane. 

There was a moment of vertigo when Tom looked down at the steep drop below him, stomach turning as he (tripped) (fell) ( _jumped_ ) caught ahold of the branches of the chestnut tree and clung to the trunk, lowering himself by inches to the ground. 

“Took you long enough,” Tord murmured. His clothing was just as obnoxious as ever, but it looked a little worse for the wear— his sweater was splattered with mud and his shoes were flaking glitter onto the dark grass. Tom wondered, momentarily, what had happened to him. “Follow me.” 

Tord turned on his heel and started walking with a purpose down the street, with Tom struggling to keep up. “Where the fuck are we going?” he asked, jogging to keep up with Tord’s brisk pace. 

“You swear very often,” Tord remarked airily, not slowing down. He was heading towards the curb, over the curb, towards the tree line on the side of the road. “It’s not an attractive quality, you know.” 

“It’s not like I’m trying to impress you,” Tom bristled, “and you didn’t answer my question.”

Tord stomped through the foliage, Tom following close behind him in the near-dark. “Trust me,” Tord repeated, more quietly this time, and for some inexplicable reason, Tom did. 

After trampling through the brush for a few minutes, Tord made a sharp turn to the left and picked up his pace. The sound of rushing water filled Tom’s ears as they emerged suddenly into a clearing at the top of a craggy waterfall. 

“Holy shit,” Tom breathed. “I never knew that this was here.” 

“That’s odd. Haven’t you lived here for years?” Tord questioned, and Tom nodded without thinking, before hesitating and turning instead to look at Tord.

“Wait. How did you know that?” 

Tord only had eyes for the waterfall. “Call it an intuition, Kitty Boy.” 

They both fell silent for a moment, watching the water roar off the edge of the cliff. 

“… Something keeps drawing me back here,” Tord finally murmured, so quiet that Tom had to strain to hear him over the crashing of the waterfall. “Like a dust mote to a celestial body. Something about this place dragged me in and refuses to let me go.” 

Tom faced the sky, partially obscured by the leaves of the forest. Stars shone like icy pinpricks from the heavens. 

“It’s a fun metaphor that we have, that our fate is written in the stars. We’re drawn in by the gravity of different places, different events…” Tord finally tore his gaze away from the waterfall and let his unnatural eyes come to rest on Tom, “… Different people.” 

There was a hint of suggestion to his tone that sent a shiver through Tom, and he could have sworn he saw the flash of Tord’s smile in the dusk. “That’s one way of putting it.”

Tord considered the waterfall again. “I get the feeling,” he mumbled, almost to himself, “that this place drew us here for a reason.”

And Tom had to admit, there was something about the falls that was preternaturally, hauntingly beautiful. 

“… Yeah. Me too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tord's quote comes from the play _Long Day's Journey Into Night_ by Eugene O'Neill.


	4. postcode baby

Tom sat in the windowsill of his room, precalculus textbook in his lap. His headache was threatening to become a migraine. With a groan, he held out his hand in the gap between houses.

“It’s precalculus, Kitty Boy. It’s not rocket science,” Tord said, not looking up from the notebook in his lap. He seemed to be focused on on writing something down, brow furrowed in concentration as he absently thumbed at the hem of his cardigan. 

“What is it with you and turning every single conversation back to space, huh?” Tom replied. “It’s not an attractive quality, you know.” 

“It’s not like I’m trying to impress you or anything,” Tord quoted with a smirk, and okay, yeah, that was probably not the best justification that Tom could have given back when they’d originally had this conversation two days ago, but whatever. Hindsight’s twenty-twenty.

“Alright, alright, I get it. I sound like one of those big-boob anime schoolgirls in your hentais.” Tom made a grabby-hands gesture. “Now gimme.” 

Tord snorted and finally passed Tom his star thermos. Tom opened it up and downed a third of it in one go. 

“Jesus christ, Tom. Slow down.” 

Tom pretended not to hear him as he took another sip of the whiskey. Edd and Matt had been saying similar things lately, especially after he'd shown up to their weekly Skype call/movie night wasted. Again. 

_This isn’t healthy, Tom,_ Edd had muttered the next day, while Tom read through his own message logs with an uncomfortable mixture of amusement and horror. It took Matt another day and a half to start talking to him again. _You can’t keep drinking like this._

Except thinking about it too hard gave Tom the tight feeling in his lungs that he knew meant a panic attack was coming on. And that just made him want to drink even more, which only made Edd and Matt more upset. Which made Tom feel lonely and miserable, which made him anxious, which made him drink. Which made it a vicious cycle. And thinking about the sheer shittiness of it for too long just made Tom crave alcohol. 

At least he had Tord. 

Tord, with his twitchy obsession with stars and his weirdass eyes and his threatening grin and his constant supply of whiskey. Tord, who was increasingly beginning to feel like the only person who really got him. 

“Did you just finish off the entire thermos?” Tord asked, incredulous, and hey. Look at that. He had. 

“Maybe,” Tom admitted, tossing the thermos back to Tord. Tord fumbled it for a second, swearing. “’S not a large thermos.” 

“Some things never change,” Tord murmured, heterochromatic eyes lidded as he gave Tom a long look. There was a deep intimacy in his expression that wasn’t making Tom as uncomfortable as it used to. Because that was the thing about Tord— he kept feeling less and less like a stranger and more and more like somebody that Tom had known forever. 

“Must be written in the stars,” Tom joked, turning back to try and focus on math homework as his mind began to fog over. 

“For both of our sakes, I hope it isn’t,” Tord sighed. He turned back to his writing.

—

(a letter in the mail:

_tom._

_you don’t remember me. but i remember you._

_a very long time ago, you and i were, for lack of a better term, friends._

_a few things about you, back then:_

_1\. you played bass guitar._ _2\. you were always very partial to cats._ _3\. you were very handy with a harpoon gun._

_i could keep going, but i’m out of time to write. i need you to do your best to remember. i don’t have much time left._

_expect me._

_\- rl)_

—

Tord looked up from the letter to quirk an eyebrow at Tom. “I don’t understand why you’re showing me this.”

Tom snatched the envelope out of Tord’s hand, trying to ignore the brief moment when his fingertips brushed Tord’s pale knuckles. Trying and failing, fuck. 

“I just got it in the mail today.” They were chilling out in Tord’s yard. Tord leaned back against the trunk of the massive chestnut tree, dissecting Tom with his eyes. Tom found himself subconsciously smoothing out the crinkles Tord’s grip had left in the letter. 

“The fact that I saw the postal worker left this in your mailbox earlier today would indicate that, yes.” Tord’s tone was droll, but Tom had gotten to know him well enough to see the lines of tension in his shoulders. 

“Stalker,” Tom commented, before pausing. “Who do you think it’s from?”

“Someone a little bit off in the head,” Tord said, voice airy. He was playing something off, but Tom couldn’t put his finger on what exactly it was. 

“You’re one to talk.” Tom glanced down at the letter again, rereading it for the thirtieth time. Bass guitar. Cats. Harpoon gun. RL.

“Why are you still looking at it, then?” Tord asked, and Tom stiffened. “Just throw it out.”

“… You’re going to make fun of me for this,” Tom muttered, and Tord went very still. 

“Don’t tell me that you believe this RL person.” 

“I…” Tom hesitated. ( _you and i were, for lack of a better term—_ ) 

“Tom?” Tord’s red-and-silver eyes were fever-bright.

“Something about this just…” 

Tom had tried playing bass, once. Quit within a month of starting his lessons and pissed the hell out of his father (“that thing was _expensive_ , you ungrateful little shit!”) because something had been off. It kept giving him migraines. Every time he’d pushed his clumsy fingers to the fretboard, he’d known. Somewhere deep down, he’d known that he should know how to play this instrument, that the strings were a little too thin for his liking, the wood of the fingerboard a little too dark…

Or every time he saw a cat. Grey cats in particular. It made something roll in his stomach. 

And the harpoons. Something about the word made him feel dizzy, like he was watching someone else move his body from two feet to the left and he was taking aim and smelling smoke and 

RL was

was

(he knew this he knew this how could he _forget—_ )

“Tom!” 

Tord’s meticulously-manicured nails were digging into Tom’s shoulders through the thick fabric of Tom’s hoodie. Tom hadn’t even noticed that he’d started hyperventilating. Panicked, he pulled away from Tord. “I need to go. Right now.” 

“Tom, what the hell?” Tord’s eyes were blown wide. Looking into them was making Tom’s head pound. 

“Let go of me!” Tom shouted, shoving Tord away from him. Tord stumbled and hit the ground hard.

Tom bolted.

—

( _"hey, kitty boy..."_ )

there's fennel for you, and columbines,

( _"do you want to hear something else?"_ )

for you, there's rosemary and rue.

( _"what do you think happens when we die?"_ )

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "there's rue for you; and here's some for me:  
> we may call it herb-grace o' Sundays:  
> O you must wear your rue with a difference..."
> 
> \-- William Shakespeare's _Hamlet_


	5. life guard

Tom tramped on through the woods, impatiently brushing twigs out of his hair. He had a feeling that he was close.

There. Right through the rhododendron. The glimmer of a waterfall. 

Squaring his shoulders, Tom picked his way around the trees to the top of the falls, catching his toes on the roots of the trees and stumbling over rocks as he made his way up the incline. 

There was a splash as Tord turned to look at him, legs dangling over the edge of the cliff. His pastel clothes were soaked through, mud clinging to his sleeves. Water rushed around where he sat in the middle of the stream, dragging the hem of his sweater ever closer to the drop. 

“I’m sorry,” Tom exhaled. “I don’t know what came over me.” 

“Water under the bridge,” Tord replied with a dismissive hand gesture. Moisture dripped from his loose sleeve. He turned to look back down the waterfall and was silent.

After a second of hesitation, Tom wandered into the stream, wincing when his socks soaked through. Slowly, he lowered himself onto a rock next to Tord. “What the hell are you doing out here?” 

“Gravitational pull,” Tord mumbled, still facing out over the treeline. You could see the whole town from here. “I’m a dust mote in the stream of fate, Tom. And this place keeps sucking me back in. How did you know that I would be here?”

_It felt like the right place to look. Fate’s been tugging again. Like a fishhook in the soul that keeps reeling you back here. Do you feel it too?_ “Guess I got lucky.”

“Didn’t think you’d be the sort to believe in luck, Kitty Boy,” Tord said, and Tom laughed.

“Neither did I.” He hopped off the rock, lowered himself into the water next to Tord. Pressed his palm over the back of Tord’s hand under the water. Watched as Tord shuddered, unclenched the muscles in his back. Rested his head on Tord’s shoulder, resolutely ignoring the acrid smell of the wet wool of his sweater.

And the woods were lovely, dark, and deep. 

—

(a letter in the mail:

_three more things._

_1\. you had a pair of checkered vans that you wore religiously._  
_2\. your favorite color was blue._  
_3\. you lived in a house with two of your best friends and a man that you hated._

_the string of fate is wrapped around my neck, tom. i’m running out of oxygen._

_please hurry._

_\- rl_ )

— 

They were exploring the base of the waterfall. The clearing was surrounded by a thick screen of rhododendron, the rocks algae-slick. Tom hopped from stone to stone, trying to keep from soaking the rest of himself, while Tord wandered along the banks. 

Tom thought it would be funny to push Tord in, right. He was already soaked, and the pool was deep enough that it wasn’t like Tord would hit his head. It was a great prank. 

So that was what he did. He snuck up behind Tord while he was staring in the water, transfixed by— 

Splash.

Only— and here’s the thing, right, here’s the fucking thing— Tord couldn’t swim.

So he started flailing uselessly, and Tom laughed because wow look at him go, wasn’t it funny to pretend he was drowning, right, fucking hysterical, up until Tord stopped struggling and got pulled down by the current and them Tom began to _panic_ , chest seizing up tight, because he suddenly knew that he had screwed the pooch, that there was a chance that there was going to be a death on his head.

And before he could overthink it, he threw himself into the icy-cold river, hitting the surface with a dull slap and squeezing his eyes shut against the murky water.

(fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck)

It took him a good sixty seconds to find a freezing hand and yank it surface-wards, kicking violently against the current and the horrible (gravity) pull of Tord’s deadweight back into the water. The river gave him up eventually, leaving Tom choking on his own lungs as he dragged Tord’s limp body across the rocks, embedding sand in his friend’s sallow skin, losing a shoe in the process. 

(idiot fuckass fuckup retarded piece of shit he didn’t deserve to live he killed his only chance of finding understanding—) 

“Don’t die on me,” Tom pleaded, voice high and small. “Not yet, Tord, please—“

He pushed up against Tord’s ribs the way he’d seen EMTs do on TV, the methodical motions they went through when they were trying to bring back the dead, pushed in all the wrong ways and felt resistance from Tord’s body as he continued to not breathe. 

“I can’t…” 

—

(“god, tord,” he’d sighed, leaning on the windowframe, tord’s thermos in his hand. “aren’t you cheerful?”

tord’s smile was surprisingly genuine. “what can i say?”

he kept looking down at whatever it was he was writing. his right eye shone ruby-bright in the dusk.

“it’s not like i’m gonna make it out of this life alive.”)

— 

Tord choked. 

“Oh, God,” Tom exhaled, falling backwards onto his knees. “Oh my God, Tord, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” His hands were trembling like leaves in a stiff breeze. Christ. It had been too fucking close.

Tord spent several seconds hacking violently. It took Tom a minute to realize that he wasn’t just struggling to breathe.

“The hell are you laughing for? You could have fucking died,” Tom rasped, raking a hand through his dripping bangs with a vengeance. 

“You’re no lifeguard, Tom. You don’t know CPR, do you? There’s no way I should have survived that,” Tord replied, voice cracking with something that was not quite mirth. 

He propped himself up on his elbows while Tom gaped at him, turned to face the waterfall, still roaring away behind him. His mismatched eyes were glittering.

“A deus ex machina? For this? Was my death at his hands not enough for you?” 

“Tord, what are you—“ 

Tord wasn’t listening. “Do you want me to put on a _show_ for you? Is that what you’re trying to tell me?”

“Tord, what the fuck is wrong with you?” Tom grabbed Tord by the shoulder in much the same way that Tord had grabbed him earlier, when he’d seen RL’s letter and

(something was wrong something was terribly wrong tord was onto something what was he _onto_ —) 

“Then I’ll give you a show,” Tord whispered, so softly that Tom almost didn’t hear it. “I’ll give you the show of your fucking life. And you will regret having crossed me.”

“Tord, who—“

— 

It was a nice night out, Tom decided, despite his pounding headache. He took another pull of Tord’s whiskey and sighed. He’d love to be doing something with it. Literally anything but more precalc homework. 

“Think I drank too much,” he muttered, rubbing at his temples. Across the gap, Tord was writing again, pushing so hard on his pencil that Tom wondered how it didn’t break. “Looks like you might need it more than me for once, Star Boy.”

Tord looked up from his paper and took a deep, shuddering breath, face tilted upwards. “I… Yes. Yes, actually.” 

Tom passed him the whiskey, still massaging his temples. God, he could use an ibuprofen. “Thanks, Kitty Boy.”

“'Course.”

Tord drained half the thermos in one go before capping it and tossing it back into his room. 

“Nice sky we’ve got tonight,” Tom said, returning to the windowsill with painkiller bottle in hand.

“Mm.” Tord slumped back and closed his eyes. "Something like that."

Tom reached out and tapped his fist against Tord's shoulder. "What, no deep metaphors about the stars or space or whatever?"

"Not tonight."

"I'm almost disappointed," Tom joked, leaning back into his own room. His vision was a little blurry. 

"Are you, now."

"Yeah, I mean like. It's kind of your schtick. Tord, local Star Boy. Wears weird clothes. Says cryptic things about space and fate and shit." 

Tord gave him an exhausted half-smile and Tom returned it. "Now c'mon. Say something deep about space."

"What if I don't want to?"

"You gotta. It's like, Star Boy law number one. You have to say deep shit about space." 

Tord laughed. Something about the sound grated on Tom's migraine just a little. "What a role I've landed myself in."

For some reason, that made Tom start laughing, too. "You can say that again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With apologies to Robert Frost.


	6. heartbreak habits

“Another one?” Tord asked, quirking an eyebrow. He dangled both legs out the window, thin thigh-high socks slipping down just slightly. His writing was discarded for the moment and he looked at the letter Tom held with a strange intensity. 

“Seems like it,” Tom replied, studying the envelope in his hand. He could feel the pounding in his temples. Another migraine incoming. Cursing under his breath, Tom dug through the pockets of his jeans for the plastic baggie of Excedrin he’d taken to carrying the past week. Probably not healthy to mix it with the alcohol already in his system, but whatever. His liver would deal. 

“Whoever this RL is, they seem to be very… Determined.” Tord extended a hand, waiting for Tom to hand him the envelope. When Tom hesitated, he smirked. 

“Don’t judge,” Tom muttered, swallowing his Excedrin dry and looking down at the letter, messy hair falling over his eyes. 

“You certainly seem invested in them, whoever they may be.” 

“They’re getting…” Tom struggled to find the words. “They’re getting desperate. Whoever they are.” He traced a nail over the neat adhesive seal of the envelope. 

Tord’s face twisted for just a moment. “Oh?”

“They keep saying something about time running out. Like they’re dying.” Tom’s face began to tic as the migraine medication kicked in, stimulants playing havoc with the muscles in his face. His fingers twitched around the paper in his hand. “We’re coming to a chokepoint, I think.”

“A chokepoint to what?” Tom finally tilted his chin back up, studying Tord through his bangs. His skin was unusually pale, the circles under his eyes bruise-like. His eyes…

_What was it about his eyes_

“Tord—“ Tom started, and he was close, he was staring at Tord’s single red eye and he was on the edge of— 

Tord leaned forward, teetering on the edge of falling out of his window, and Tom had never seen desperation on Tord’s face until now, almost but not quite subsumed by his fake-as-hell nonchalance, in all the years he’d known the commie bastard he hadn’t seen Tord look like—

— 

Tom sighed, popping another Excedrin as he continued to work through his English paper. “I fucking hate Hamlet,” he muttered, violently stabbing at the keys on his keyboard. “This play makes no fucking sense.”

Tord laughed. “Not a fan of the classics, Kitty Boy?” He was seated in his windowsill, both legs dangling out the window, thin thigh-high socks slipping down just slightly. Tord absently popped a cherry into his mouth, distracted by something on his own laptop, a rose-gold monstrosity covered in sparkly stickers. Mostly space-themed, of course. God forbid Tord ever strayed from his aesthetic.

“Nothing he’s doing makes any sense! If he wants to kill the king, he could just fuckin’… I dunno, stab him in his sleep? Why does he have to go around acting all insane? This is just too melodramatic, what the hell,” Tom groused, glaring down at his copy of the play.

“The melodrama is the point, Kitty Boy. Who would want to watch a play where people acted rationally?” Tom, absorbed in writing his paper, missed Tord’s too-wide grin. “Isn’t it more entertaining to watch the characters struggle?” 

“Unnecessary conflict,” Tom replied, still typing. “God, Ophelia wouldn’t have _had_ to die if these people could get it together for, like, ten minutes. If Hamlet had just gotten his act together, she wouldn’t have gone insane. This is bullshit. Who’d want to watch this?” 

“Plenty of people,” Tord said, reaching for another cherry. “Something about the tragedy of insanity and forbidden love has remained thematically relevant through the centuries.”

“You pretentious ass,” Tom shot back, trying not to smile. “Of course you’d be all over this shit. Romeo and Juliet and all this ‘fate written in the stars’ bullcrap."

“I’ll concede on the pretentiousness, but I’ve always hated Shakespeare.”

The two boys lapsed into silence, distracted by their respective laptops. 

— 

(okay, this was going to sound weird, but.

it was getting harder to remember the in-between times. the times when he wasn’t around tord.

sure, he went to school. spent time with his family. messaged his friends. surfed the web. played video games. listened to music. all that jazz.

but all of that was beginning to blur together, fade away. the times he spent with tord were clear, defined, solid. everything else was starting to get a little fuzzy.

and that was scary, y’know? losing time. so he tried to spend time with tord, whenever he could. talked with edd and matt less. drank more.

the migraines were getting worse.)

— 

“I need your opinion, Kitty Boy,” Tord called, propping his elbows up on the windowsill. Tom startled at the sound.

“What?”

“I need to pick a career. I’ll be taking the SATs soon and I want to have an idea of what I’ll be specializing in before I take them.” Tord spared a glare for the dictionary-sized SAT review book in his room. “So I want to hear your thoughts on my eventual specialization.”

“I dunno,” Tom mumbled, still not entirely present. “Something space-related?” 

“Astrophysics could be interesting, I suppose,” Tord mused. “We’ve had a few conversations on the topic before.”

“Mhm. Fate shit,” Tom said, noncommittal. “You’re like. Good at fate shit.” 

“You’re thinking of astrology,” Tord corrected, and Tom was quickly running out of patience for this conversation. He could feel another migraine coming on.

“Whatever. That.” Tom leaned dangerously far out his own window to grab at Tord’s thermos. Tord gave him an arch look.

“Are you alright, Tom?” 

“Yep.” Tom opened the thermos and breathed in the whiskey smell. Knocked it back. “Totally fine."

— 

They were laying in the grass in Tom’s front yard, staring up at the sky. The dew was just starting to form, leaving Tom chilly in his shorts and t-shirt. His bare shoulder just brushed the wool of Tord’s sweater. 

“That one is Sirius,” Tord said, bracelets clinking together gently as he pointed upwards. Tom couldn’t for the life of him tell which star Tord was pointing at, but he nodded anyways. “It’s part of a constellation of the same name. The Great Dog.”

Tom stared at the sky, at the tiny bright silvery lights shining down on him. Like someone had poked needle-holes in the black fabric separating Heaven from Earth, remnants of stitches of invisible red thread— 

He felt suddenly, horribly claustrophobic.

"It's funny," Tord says, "how Sirius looks like it's a single star. Deceptive. There's about 10 AU separating the pair of them, you know. Culturally, everyone just assumed they were the same."

Tom nodded, unsure of where he was going with this. Tord smiled a little too widely. 

"Do you get it yet, Tom?”

— 

The cat was back.

“He seems to like you best,” Tord remarked, glancing at the kitten with hooded eyes. “He won’t let me anywhere near him.”

“‘Cause you reek of asshole,” Tom snarked. It was a stupid line. His heart wasn’t in it. He absently pet the cat. 

“Are you going to give him a name?” The cat hissed when Tord spoke, baring tiny fangs. Tord locked eyes with it, giving it his best Cheshire grin. 

“He already has one,” Tom muttered. “’s name is Rin—“

—

“Now,” Tord said. “Let’s take a moment to discuss multiverse theory.”

His room was empty, a mess. Pastel clothes scattered everywhere. He was speaking to no one. 

“Tegmark postulated four levels of the multiverse. Three of them are relevant here. The first level was simple enough; it states that there are separate universes in which different events occur. Regions beyond our cosmic horizon, as he put it. The idea that there is an infinite, or at least sizable, number of different universes out there that share our physical laws, but differ in their starting conditions. Maybe a single atom of hydrogen in the farthest reaches of space is a millimeter to the left. Maybe a great politician wasn’t born, changing the course of human history. Either way, the world will play out differently as a result.”

On his desk, his laptop idled. The soft whirring of the air conditioner went unnoticed, as did the subtle buzz of electric lights.

"The second level gets a bit more complicated— it concerns the idea that there are other post-inflation bubbles. Infinite space. Within infinite space, of course, there will be infinite copies of the same event playing out, either with exact precision or with slight variation. In other words, somewhere out there, in the vast reaches of space, is infinite versions of me, giving this exact monologue (or, dare I say, soliloquy,) or perhaps this monologue with slightly different phrasing. There is a me giving this speech with three tongues, and another with green skin, and another, perhaps, who is blind in one eye…?”

There was a slight rocking to Tord’s body. A twitch to his eye. Death rictus grin. Fatalistic mirth. 

"The third level, however, is the one which I am interested in. Perhaps you will be, as well. The idea of quantum physics is introduced. Time branches with every decision, leading to a tree of infinite probabilities with every move, every decision, every thought. Infinitely fractal fate. Every choice leads to a new reality.”

A single red eye.

“Consider, for a moment, the Dog Star. Sirius. Two separate stars, one giant, one dwarf. Indistinguishable to the naked eye, forever drawn into their mutual gravitational pull. One of these stars, the larger one, will eventually go supernova. The effects will reverberate across our universe. The other, smaller star will eventually fizzle out and die. From Earth, to the naked eye, to the person who is not looking for it, only one death will be relevant. Only one death will be visible. When the dwarf star dies, the vast majority of people will not notice.

“I like to see this as a metaphor. Two realities, orbiting each other. One major, bright, important, _relevant_. The other, an afterthought. Two fractures from the same thread of fate.

“Perhaps this doesn’t quite make sense yet. Maybe it never will. It could be that the performance of madness will eventually drive me well and truly insane in this splinter of reality. Maybe it already has.”

He smiles.

“Shakespearean conceits are certainly not my forte. But if I must be Ophelia, I will be Muller’s Ophelia. Tie together the strings of fate into one fatalistic thread. Make the dwarf go supernova.”

He pauses, takes a bow to the empty room. Doesn’t blink. Still grinning, he says:

“This is Elektra speaking.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will pay cash money to anyone who will punch Tegmark in the face for me.


	7. helpless waltz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Optional listening: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HexopwZdbq8
> 
> I couldn't decide on a musical accompaniment for this chapter, so this will have to do.

He was digging a hole in the dirt.

The motion of it was mechanical, automatic— force the head of the spade in deep, grunt, twist, lever up more soil, dump it to the side, rinse, repeat. Kick the shovel with the head of his boot on occasion, push it deeper. There was a jagged edge between the sod of his backyard and the pit he was digging. 

Tom paused. 

_Why was he digging._

“Don’t stop now, Kitty Boy,” Tord called. He was leaning against the side of his house, clad in pale green and emeralds. The ensemble clashed with his single red eye. “Still got a ways to go.” 

“Tord—“ Tom began, grip tightening on the smooth wooden handle of his shovel. Whose shovel— 

“We’re going to need this hole to be a little bit deeper if we want the tree to fit into it, don’t you think?” Tord interrupted, tone slow and deliberate. “We need to cross off the ninth item on our bucket list, correct?”

Bucket list. The memories came rushing back. Him and Tord sitting in their respective windowsills, drinking shitty Swiss Miss and planning all of the things they wanted to do before they died. Raising a tree sapling was on that list. 

“Right,” Tom panted, leaning against the shovel. “That.” 

Tord kept their gazes locked for a moment. Two. Three. Tom looked away suddenly, reaching into his hoodie pocket for his Excedrin. “This cherry blossom isn’t going to plant itself.” 

“I didn’t know that these things grew in England,” Tom muttered, popping the pill and swallowing quickly. “Didn’t think that we had the climate for it.”

As if to validate that statement, he felt a small drop of rain hit the top of his head, followed by another. The sky was a heavy, oppressive grey. As Tom stared off into the clouds, he became uncomfortably aware of the light sheen of sweat on his body, made worse by the humidity. There was a dark storm brewing.

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’ll be _just fine_ out here, won’t it?” Tord’s messy hair was ruffled by the strengthening breeze, but his flower crown stayed in place. Something about his stance was a little too deliberate, like he was trying his hardest to act casual. “Now let’s get it into the ground.” 

Tom shoveled out another few handfuls of dirt before tossing away the spade and kneeling down beside the hole. Tord carried over the sapling, a scraggly little thing that shivered in the breeze. In silence, the two boys wrestled it out of its pot, pressed it into the earth. As they worked, the rain began to pick up in earnest, turning the newly-exposed soil into mud. 

“There. Done.” 

Tord rose from the dirt, clay clinging to his bare legs. He offered Tom a hand up and

their palms 

touched...

Tord caught Tom as he went suddenly limp, arms under Tom’s armpits, taking the brunt of his weight. “May I have this dance,” Tord whispered, lips centimeters from Tom’s ear.

“It was you,” Tom breathed. “The letters.”

A flash of lightning in the clouds. A rattle of thunder. Tord, smiling down at him.

“Let me explain.”

— 

(once upon a time,

in another life,

you and i—)

— 

“We don’t have much time,” Tord murmured, pulling Tom’s unwilling body close. His sweater was soaked through and clung close to his narrow shoulders. “We only have until this dance ends.”

“I don’t understand,” Tom said, pressing up against Tord and resting his chin on the other man's shoulder. “It hit me, just now, and—“

“I will explain everything, I promise you. But for now, please, Tom. Let me speak.” The angle didn’t let Tom see Tord’s face, but his voice was grim. 

They began to sway.

“This isn’t our first timeline together, Tom. I don’t know how we got here. This is an offshoot from our lives, from our _real_ lives. A parody.”

The rain was roaring down around them. Tom nearly lost his footing in the slick grass as they danced.

“We are trapped in this offshoot indefinitely, but we are approaching the climax of the narrative. We’re reaching a choke point. A finale.”

Tom could feel the tension in the muscles in Tord’s back. 

“This offshoot has rules. We can’t acknowledge that we know each other. We can’t acknowledge that we know what is going on. We either play into our roles in this world or we are punished by the narrative of it.” 

“What do you mean, ‘punished’?"

Tom startled as Tord pulled away from him for a brief moment, unwrapping his arms from Tom’s waist in order to peel off his rain-soaked sweater, revealing a lean, pale torso covered in— 

“Is that—“ Tom hissed, but was interrupted by Tord pulling him back in to continue their morbid waltz. 

“Exactly what it looks like,” Tord said, right into his ear. Tom could hear the sharp grin in his voice. “You’ve been having gaps in your memory too, haven’t you? I woke up from one with a boxcutter in my hand and blood all over my shirt. Very methodical, very shallow. Nothing close enough to a major vein to cause permanent damage. A nice little slap on the wrist for…” Tord hummed to himself for a moment, lost in a private joke, “… Mouthing off.”

“Holy shit,” Tom exhaled, eyes wide and staring at nothing. “The waterfall, Tord. That’s why…”

“I can’t swim,” Tord completed. He shifted his grip on Tom’s waist, moving it lower. Despite the iciness of the rain, Tom still flushed. “It’s a warning. A reminder.”

“… What does it want from us?” Tom didn’t know what ‘it’ even was, freezing horror seeping into him as the revelation finally hit home.

“A show,” Tord replied simply. 

The music ran out. Tord stepped away from Tom, bare chest beaded with raindrops. His hair was damp and falling into his eyes. He was still smiling. “I’m afraid that’s all for now, Kitty Boy.”

“I…” Tom began, not sure how to finish his sentence. 

“We’ll speak again soon.” 

Lightning flashed, gleaming in Tord's single red eye. His grin had turned manic.

"Expect me."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wouldn't the world be better if we took nonsense more seriously?


	8. anxious fascinations

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mind the update to the tags.

Tom refused to look out the window as he slowly dried his hair. He knew that Tord was watching him through the open blinds, felt himself flush as Tord’s eyes traced over his bare back. His soaked clothes were hanging off the side of his desk, dripping steadily down onto the carpet. 

His mind raced to process everything, the new deluge of memories filtering through his mind like sand in a sieve, catching on jagged edges of past recollections and grinding the gears of his thought process to a screeching halt. He was already losing pieces, _important_ pieces, but more was being retained than he’d thought: he remembered his bass, his old house, Edd and Matt—

Edd and Matt. 

_How much did they know._

Tom stood, letting his towel fall down around his shoulders as he stared blankly out the window to where Tord was still studying him, completely unreadable. He opened his mouth to ask a question. Paused. Closed it again.

Stared into Tord’s brilliant eyes. 

“What’s on your mind, Kitty Boy?” Tord purred, leaning on the windowsill. His red hoodie made the bottom drop out of Tom’s stomach. It must have been deliberate. 

“Nothing,” Tom muttered, a little too quickly. He pulled up a corner of the towel, pretending to dry his forehead to give him a second of privacy from Tord’s piercing gaze. “What were we talking about, again?”

“Oh, you know. The usual. Stars, fate. The inevitable heat-death of the universe,” Tord chimed, whimsical. And then, “you look cold, Kitty Boy.”

“I wonder why,” Tom replied, tone false-snarky. Where was Tord going with this?

Tord seemed to know exactly what Tom was thinking. He smirked, reached behind him. “Here. Try this on for size?”

Tom gaped. It couldn’t be. 

“Is that—“ 

—

(it had been torn it had been bloodied he had nearly lost his arm and he’d had to throw it out because because because)

(… what had happened, again?)

— 

“— The right size?” Tord cut him off, still smiling. “You’ll just have to try it on and see, now won’t you?”

He tossed the sweatshirt at Tom, who fumbled with the soft fabric for a moment before sliding on the (intact? when was it damaged?) hoodie, a slight chill going down his spine. It smelled like a laundry detergent that he hadn’t used in a lifetime. 

Tom looked at Tord, framed by the light of his bedroom in the drizzling dusk. Damp hair, cunning grin, red hoodie, single red eye glittering. Tom felt his heart hesitate, miss a beat, pick up again with a fervor. 

“A perfect fit, no?” 

“… Are your parents around?” Tom asked, thumbs finding the worn parts on the elastic sleeves. 

Shock crossed Tord’s face for a moment, lightning-quick, before his smirk deepened. “Oh, Tom. Are you implying what I think you’re implying?”

(exhaustion confusion fear terror nostalgia when you touch me i remember understand please understand i need—) 

Tord moved to rest his chin on his palm, slowly, deliberately, hoodie sleeve sliding down to reveal still-unhealed cuts in neat parallel rows down his wrist. His eyes never left Tom’s face. 

(you and i, pawns in the Great Game, stars in orbit, Sirus and Sirius, one in the same,)

“I…” 

( _play the Game, Tom._ )

He forced himself to smirk back, tried to ignore the way the muscles in his face pulled incorrectly into a grimace. “Maybe.”

“In that case, I’m home all alone,” Tord singsonged. “Would you like to _keep me company?_ ”

Tom blushed hard at the implication, but Tord laughed. “No need to be coy, Kitty Boy. My bed has enough room for two.” 

“Wait, I—“ 

Tord was already leaving the window, walking to the door of his bedroom, out into the hall. “Meet me at the front door?”

He felt like he was falling. 

—

(and when he touches you, you _remember_ :)

—

“Now, you may be wondering,” Tord begins, leaning on the windowsill and looking out at the night sky. He is shirtless. There are deep scratches down his back; they come from fingernails that are not his own. In his bed, Tom sleeps. Does not dream. “Whether or not I love him.”

( _Now we have the wax, which is the streak beneath our skin,_ )

“There are many ways that I could answer this question. The most obvious of these would be to claim that I do, wholeheartedly and without reservation. To say that what I took from him tonight, I took out of love. That even despite our situation— no, better, perhaps because of the uniqueness of it, the undeniable touch of fate— that I have fallen for him. Certainly, there is poetry to that answer, a type of twisted romance that I’m sure appeals to those of you who aren’t yet aware of your taste for schadenfreude. It would be an easy answer to give. Very safe.” 

( _and the wick, which is the faith that we have skeined,_ )

“If I were feeling spiteful, I could say that I did this out of loathing. Loathing for the man who killed me, for the boy who would eventually become him. Loathing for my hopelessness, loathing for the threads of fate of fate that weave this universe in particular, loathing for this body and this lifetime and for you, whomever you may be, who has the hardness of heart to see my suffering and punish my transgression. Enough loathing to make me steal something from him, something important. Something he can never, ever take back.” 

He is fingering a boxcutter, blade brilliant under the stars.

“Now, this would also be an easy answer. Easier in some ways than the first, supposing that I value my pride over the sanctity of my body and life. Which, mind you, is still very much a possibility.”

( _and the tinder, which is the harm we have done to those who loved us,_ )

“There are many lies I could spin. I’ve been told that I have a silver tongue; I’ll leave you to your own opinions on my persuasiveness. Perhaps it was a flight of lust, brought on by the desperation of my circumstances. A desire to seek comfort, however temporary, in his love and his body. Perhaps my tongue is silver enough to talk me into loving him. It would certainly make things simpler.”

The tip of the boxcutter presses against the tip of a finger. Meets skin that yields, resists, breaks. 

A single bead of blood in the starlight.

( _and the flint, which is the name, the Name, the treasure of music stilled._ )

“However. I get the sinking feeling that my fate is already sealed, isn’t it?”

A single red eye.

( _Now._ )

“With that in mind, I feel like you deserve to know the truth.”

( _It will hurt, we must render ourselves a little,_ )

Tord is looking to the heavens with the blade now deep in his fingertip. The needle-pricks of a higher plane glimmer with icy light.

( _there will be scars,_ )

“After all, what fun is a drama, a conceit, without a taste of genuine emotion?”

( _but what is one more scar, what is that?_ )

"The truth is a mixture of them all. True feelings are never simple, are they? I almost prefer my own lies, sometimes, if only for the simplicity. Wouldn’t it be easier to love him entirely, or not at all?”

( _One more scar. What is that?_ )

He looks to the heavens, and there, he finds no comfort. Blood drips lazily down his finger. Across the curve of his palm. Onto the pristine white windowsill.

“But I’m afraid that is not how this story will end.”

—

(half-asleep in your arms, he’d said:

i love you, star boy.)

—

(and you fall.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> " _These are real stars. They burn above the roof of the Neath, beyond the earth, in the spaces of heaven. Even so far away, even now, their eyes are upon you. Soon they will be upon you in earnest._ "
> 
> The first person who comments with the source of this quote and the quote from Tord's monologue will receive a) my undying love and b) the chance to read the outline for chapter 9 before I post it. Good luck and happy Seeking!


End file.
